Confusion is coming, a massive, nationwide sense of it. Buy Greenland? Seize the Panama Canal? Deport millions of illegal immigrants, all at once? Crazy? A bluff? Simple diversion? Nobody knows, and that’s the point: uncertainty. The same with the ever expanding conspiracy theories and the wild allegations. If nothing is true, then nothing is false, and this is just the beginning. Once Trump is sworn in, we are headed into a period of chaos and confusion that will veer at times towards anarchy. This is Trump 2.0. This is Trump, the Victory Tour. More and more, nobody will know what to believe. And it isn’t just Trump. The equally erratic people that surround him will continue to push their equally erratic agendas as well. Piled on top will be the huge, well-financed, Right-wing media campaign, pushing out competing versions of reality.

Does the Democratic Party need an identity that unites and inspires every single Democrat in this country? Do we need an identity that creates an emotional connection to the vast sea of unaffiliated and disaffected Americans out there?

That is the question we should have been asking for the past twenty years, because clearly, we don’t have one now. Not only have we failed to connect with growing numbers of American voters, we have endlessly fractured ourselves. Our failure to understand the importance of this basic, emotional principle of identity has left us so divided we attack ourselves as easily as the enemy, and the Big Tent has been torn to shreds in the process.

A New Year is upon us … and what a year! Most of us are still in shock, and January 21st hasn’t even happened yet! Well, ready or not, a staggering amount is about to befall us. It’s going to be a year with literally no precedent, so here are some New Year’s Resolutions to start you off with a shred of sanity.

Resolved and Invest in Democracy!

It’s the holiday season, and time to give gifts. So, as we approach the wonder of January 21st, our gift to you is a list of questions! Here are some things to mull over over the mulled wine. Enjoy!

• Why are you a Democrat?

• What is the Purpose of the Democratic Party? Do we exist just to win elections, or is it something more?

• Does the Democratic Party have a soul?

• What divides us?

• What unifies us?

• How important is our identity?

• How important is it to have a common identity that unifies and inspires all Democrats, everywhere, an identity that provides an emotional connection with unaffiliated and fed-up voters?

• Is it time to act?

Branding as a way to fix our problems is a dangerous idea. Focusing on branding is fine if you want to go back to where we were in 2020. Branding alone is fine is you’re content with where we’ve been for decades, trading power back and forth as the public becomes more and more cynical. But if we want to actually fix things, if we want to go forward to a place where MAGA doesn’t exist, then focusing on “branding” is truly dangerous. It confuses things, because our real problem is identity.

Identity is what an organization actually is. You can’t create it [or recreate it], identity just is. And people know. If your identity is strong, people recognize it. If it’s strong enough, then that identity becomes a brand all by itself. If your identity is fractured or tired, people recognize that too. They move away from it, and all the branding in the world won’t fix it.

Of course, if you’re a rural county party, winter has been coming for a very long time. It’s been darkening the horizon, and you’ve been crying out. You’ve been pointing frantically at the impending storm, at  the growing dangers, but nobody would listen ... not the state party, not the national party, not anyone with real power. And so, Donald Trump is President once again, and the American Winter begins on January 21st.

All through all this slow-motion disaster, the Establishment has looked at you as the problem. You’ve been seen as an obstacle in the way, something to be written off. But the truth is, you’re the answer. You. Rural counties. All 2551 of you, 81% of all the counties in America.  You are how we fix this once and for all, permanently. The way forward for this country runs straight through you, and here’s why.

Don’t you want to hold up something that’s just true? Don’t you want to hand unaffiliated voters  something that’s so simple, so straightforward, and so true that even the most skeptical have to agree? Imagine discussing something that not only makes you proud, something so universal it inspires that unaffiliated voter, yet fits perfectly with every bit of our Presidential campaign messaging?

We have to win on November 5th. Period. And we need to spread the inspiring Harris campaign message as far and wide as possible. But if those political slogans remain slogans, if the words are seen as political messaging, then no matter what happens on November 5th, decisive change .. putting Vance and MAGA and everything they represent back into the box … will not happen. That change we so desperately want depends on building permanent support among the thousands of unaffiliated and disaffected voters in your county … a permanent change in attitude. And this permanent change depends on what happens after the election.

Why does J.D. Vance exist? How has he become a symbol of modern Ohio?

Why are women’s rights under assault all across the state? Why has gerrymandering been authorized by the Ohio Supreme Court? Why are Democrats under attack in rural counties, fearful of even saying they’re Democrats? Why is democracy as we know it under threat in a state that was once a true bellwether for America?

Identity. It’s that simple. The identity of the Democratic Party that FDR founded, the identity that  lifted us out of the Great Depression and united so much of this country … rural and big city alike … has been lost, and nowhere more than in rural Ohio. That emotional identity was at the center of everything Roosevelt achieved. That core sense of who we are carried us through decades of incredible difficulty. It launched us forward towards enormous social progress, the very things we relish today.

The holiday weekend, coming on top of our presence at the Democratic National Convention, has made this an incredibly busy time for everyone. There have been more county adoptions, the push to get Campaigning with Values and Vision out, and following up on all the DNC developments. Much of the news will have to wait for next week, but below are some tidbits.

Hope all of you had a great Labor Day weekend, and are energized for the crucial weeks ahead.

“Turmoil” is one word for the past few weeks. “Fractured” is another. “Despondent and helpless” is how many of us have been left to feel. A major turning point for this party and this country is at hand, and we .. the grassroots .. are powerless to decide what happens.

But there is opportunity in this as well, for us. The current crisis has laid bare the real issues we face. There is no more pretense about this being traditional politics. Winning is no longer about our candidate, and in truth it never has been. Long before the current crisis, we all came to accept that November 5th was about stopping Trump. The candidate became irrelevant other than as a vehicle to achieve it. Do you remember Obama and the emotions of “Yes, we can!”? The feelings of hope? That sort of thing has become a distant memory, lost in everything that has come into play. There is no Obama to excite us today, and there isn’t going to be. That leaves us pushing a negative as our entire campaign, possibly two negatives, and each and every one of us knows that’s a hard sell.

“Stunned” is what we all felt last Thursday, every Democrat in this country who cares .. stunned and demoralized because something much bigger than politics is clearly at stake. As the grassroots, we cannot control what the power figures in Washington are going to do, or those in the state capitol. But identity is one thing we can control. The demand for a resurrected Democratic Party identity based on core values and vision .. values we all believe in, basic beliefs that give us purpose and meaning .. that is very much in our power. That is in your power.

The values that define the Democratic Party are not just political positions; they are the bedrock of American ideals. At our core, Democrats believe that all people are created equal—this is America’s fundamental principle, deeply embedded in our nation’s history and enshrined in our founding documents.

From the stirring words of the Declaration of Independence to the profound promises of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the narrative of American democracy has been one of relentless pursuit of freedom, justice, and opportunity for all. These documents do not merely outline a system of governance but call for a society that uplifts and provides for every individual, affirming that true democracy is by the people and for the people.